Tough January hits IT job markets

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Overall vacancy levels fell for an eighth consecutive month in January, and at the fastest pace since the Recruitment and Employment Confederation's (REC) Report on Jobs began 21 years ago.

Other key findings from today’s publication of January’s REC and KPMG Report on Jobs, found further sharp falls in appointments, vacancies and pay in January.

The report showed reductions in permanent and temporary staff employment during last month. And lower candidate appointments reflected weak demand for staff at employers that was mirrored by high levels of candidate availability.

Although this was starting to affect the IT job market, Sean Gallagher, spokesman for the REC IT & Communications sector group, said the technology sector was well-positioned to weather the recession.

“The wider IT recruitment sector has noticed certain softening in certain areas, but it is not declining as fast as other sectors,” he said. “We’re seeing demand for commodity IT jobs falling, but certain skills are still very much in demand in certain industry sectors.”

In fact, the report showed that IT was the second slowest sector in terms of month-on-month decline. The group expects this trend continue, positioning the sector to move more quickly back towards growth than others.

The report also noted an underlining a shift in bargaining power towards employers, as the rate of decline in average permanent salaries declined at its fastest rate since data collection started in October 1997. And hourly pay rates for temporary staff were also down sharply on the month.

But Gallagher said: “The headlines are all about organisations with falling revenues cutting costs. But IT still delivers benefits and is one way of generating savings, as well as remaining one of the easiest ways to gain competitive advantage. And what we've seen with the likes of the merger activity among the big banks will only provide more work for IT.”

The report said key skills in demand for permanent IT staff included .NET, C# and PHP developers, in addition to temporary CNC programmers. Gallagher added that those candidates with the most relevant, specialised IT skills and business experience were best placed to do well in both permanent and contractor markets.

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